


Petals on Blood-Stained Lips

by Jack (BaraFrance)



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Denial, Engineer is Dell, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Medic is... Medic. I don't think he's ever named., Pining, Sniper is Mick, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love, if he is it'll be konrad because that's my go-to medic name
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-03-15 17:30:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13618212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BaraFrance/pseuds/Jack
Summary: Sniper finds that sometimes love can be hard to swallow.





	1. denial & flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate title: wot in carnation
> 
> Hopefully this will only be two or three chapters long, but we'll see.
> 
> Rating may change. Again, we'll see.

Michael Martin Mundy, generally, has never been in the greatest health.  As a kid it was mostly self inflicted--falling out of trees, instigating animal bites, usual childish injuries.  But as he aged, aches and pains came with him, partially from his job and partially from dumb shit done in his youth and--well, maybe some more recently than he’d like to admit.  Even with respawn, you don’t fall out of a sniper’s nest headfirst without sustaining a few achy joints.

He was used to it, though, which is probably why he didn’t pay much attention when his chest began to ache.  It wasn’t his heart, he knew--too low for that, and sort of in the center, rather than where his heart would be.  So, it was probably fine. Maybe years of smoking starting to catch up with him. Besides, it wasn’t even there all the time.  It almost never hurt while he was working, even if he was running more than usual or getting thrown around.  It didn’t hurt when he was trying to sleep, either.  It mostly hurt in his off-hours, when he was hanging out with the guys, or eating meals, or sitting around the campfire listening to engie strum at his guitar.

So, no big deal, probably nothing.

The coughing started one friday night after a week of wins.  The whole team had gathered outside in the desert evening, a large bonfire keeping the bugs and animals at bay.  Engineer grilled them a hearty meal, Demoman brought a few cases of booze, and everyone stayed up talking and singing and laughing late into the night.  Sniper sat in the dirt a bit away from the fire, sipping a beer and watching the team’s foolishness contentedly as the sun dipped below the horizon.

Engineer plopped down next to him, tuning up his guitar a bit before he started to strum.  Not everyone was there, by that point--Spy had left about a half hour after dinner was finished, and Pyro had carried a highly inebriated Scout to his room about an hour after that.  Heavy was standing by the fire with Medic, discussing something in tones just too quiet for Mick to hear them, but he was sure whatever they were talking about wasn’t of interest to him.  Soldier stood with them, looking between them as if listening to the conversation, but it was clear by his expression that he was having a hard time following.  After about ten minutes of that, Demo tapped Soldier’s shoulder and jabbed a thumb over his own.  An offer of some sort, which Soldier grinned and nodded at, before both of them ran off, away from the base.

Mick didn’t have to wonder where they went long, since the sound of an explosion soon echoed in the distance.  It was far away enough that it wasn’t a bother, but the Sniper found himself smiling and rolling his eyes nonetheless. 

He kept to himself a bit, but he loved his team. He loved all the men he worked with, like family.  Sure, they all had real family to go back to--himself included, though his was just his little old parents back in Australia.  But the team was family in a different way.  He would trust any one of these men with his life, need be.  

Even Spy.

His chest had started hurting again that evening, and only gotten worse as it progressed. He rubbed at the pain through his shirt with the heel of his hand, sighing. He usually liked to stay at these get-togethers until the fire was just embers, usually long past the rest of the team.  Prevented forest fires, he’d tell them, but really he just loved the desert nights and everything that came with them.  But maybe it was time to turn in.

A small sound drew him from his reflection, and he turned his head to seek out its source.  Engineer, with his thick fingers wrapped around the neck of his guitar and head bowed to watch his own hands strum across the strings, had started to hum out lyrics.  The low timbre of his voice wrapped around the words of an old country tune, warm and sweet like...

Like Mick didn’t know what.  He did know, however, that he’d never heard it before, nor had he seen that look on Dell’s face before--serene, but concentrated, focused on fingering the chords in time with his words.  Perhaps he didn’t sing and play at the same time very often, and he was trying to practice. Or perhaps he had forgotten Sniper was sitting by his side, and thought everyone was too far away to hear.  It looked like he had just gotten lost in the music, and couldn’t help but sing along.

The pain in his chest throbbed with a new intensity very suddenly, and the surprise of it almost knocked Mick’s breath out of him.  His hand went to his chest again, and a heavy, painful cough ripped its way up from his chest, dry and piercing.  He couldn’t quite stop it, and Engineer fell silent, looking up at Sniper with a startled expression.  When Mick got his bearings, he looked up to see Heavy and Medic looking his way as well.

“You all right, Stretch?”

“Yeah, ‘m fine,” Sniper croaked, rubbing at his chest once more.  The cough had made the pain worse, and he started to wonder if perhaps it was something he should be worried about.

“Are you sure, Herr Sniper?  That did not sound good.  If you are not feeling well, you are always free to stop in my Medbay--”

“It’s nothin’, it’s nothin’.” Sniper pushed himself up off the ground with a grunt, shaking his head.  “It’s just, you know, a cold.  Just gotta sleep it off.”  His hand went from his chest to the rim of his hat so he could tip it at his friends with a nod.  “G’night, fellas.”

“You sure?” Engineer looked up at him with legitimate concern in his big blue eyes, uncovered by his ever-present goggles, and Sniper felt his lungs throb hard in his chest again, warning him that another coughing fit would come if he opened his mouth. So he just nodded and gave a weak smile, then turned and started making his way to his camper.

Once he was there, and the door was bolted and locked behind him, he let himself collapse into coughs.  He hacked hard into his hands, doubling over with shaking shoulders and tears in his eyes.  

When his breath returned and he pulled his hands away, throat raw and exhausted, there was a yellow flower petal in his palm.

  
  


Mick continued life as usual, despite the fact that his chest pains had advanced to painful dry hacking accompanied by flower petals.  He honestly couldn’t think of an explanation for it, except for maybe hallucinations, but the petals felt so real.  They were always yellow, with sort of ruffled edges.  They were soft, too.  Like they were freshly plucked from a flower.

For some reason, the coughs never came when he was alone.  The pain had grown to a full-time thing, but the coughs only ever happened when he was with the guys, hanging out or before a round or eating a meal.  He was starting to think he was allergic to company, and ended up withdrawing from them even more than usual.

He stood at his locker before a match a few weeks later, rearranging its contents--a stack of jars and a few jackets was all that was in there, really, since he kept his weapons with him.  He’d gotten there before the rest of the team, which wasn’t unusual given his weird sleep schedule.  He gave each of the guys a vague wave as they came in, the pain in his chest steadily growing.

Medic was the next to show up, followed shortly by Heavy.  Soldier stomped in not far behind him, at which point Sniper moved to one of the benches by the wall to clean the barrel of his rifle.  Engineer ambled in next, tipping his helmet at Mick on the way by and giving him a warm honey-sweet grin.  The pain in his chest throbbed, and he tipped his hat back.  Spy ambled in after him, cigarette already lit.  Scout ran in next, rushing to his locker and immediately turning the volume of the room up to 100.  Demo slogged in with a hangover clear on his face as the Announcer began her countdown, and Sniper stood and slung his weapon over his shoulder, ready to go.

...He wasn’t sure when Pyro had come in, but the firebug was definitely there. 

The klaxon blared and the team poured from the base’s metal doors, rushing off to protect the points just like every day.  Mick sighed contentedly, glad for another day of calm sniping up in his nest.  This was a good map, too, with a perfect sniping spot overlooking the point at a hard angle to shoot at from below.  The burlier members of the team held their opponents off up ahead for a while, too, which gave Mick a little bit of time to set up.

His coffeepot on the crate next to him, jars on the floor by his feet, gun propped on the window sill to poke through the slats of wood attempting to cover it, and he couldn’t be more comfortable.  The pain had even started to ebb away a bit. 

He heard a clanging start below his window, and looked down to see his Engineer building a sentry next to the point.  Er, his  _ team’s  _ Engineer, anyway.  He watched Engie set up the level one gun before turning towards the building he was holed up in and kneeling down, laying out the groundwork for a dispenser.  Every ten whacks or so, he would get up and run off to the right, assumedly to grab more metal to work with, and Mick found himself entranced by the proceedings.  Smack, build, stand, run, repeat.  Through his scope, he could see the Engineer’s arms straining through his shirt sleeves, and the sweat building on his brow.

With a sudden start, Mick leaned back on his crate to cough hard, spitting another few petals onto the floor.  A few drops of liquid came out with them, this time, but he felt it rather than seeing it.  Wiping a sleeve across his mouth, he leaned forward again to keep an eye on the point.

The match passed very much like every other point defense match did at this base: they managed to hold off the other team at the first choke point for a bit, but it wasn’t long until they pushed through and all the fighting happened right on top of the control point.  Between Engineer’s sentry and a frequently-Ubered heavy, though, they couldn’t really get a foothold.  Sniper felt he was doing fairly good work, popping heads at regular intervals.  The other team’s Heavy and Medic were frequent victims, as well as the opposing Sniper, just for spite’s sake.

Just after he did so--satisfyingly shooting the bastard just as he’d been noticed--he heard a rapid, loud beeping, paired with some electrical zapping sounds and loud southern-accented cursing.  Mick looked down to see Engineer’s buildings both exploded by sappers, and the man himself standing over a dead Spy with a bloody wrench in his hand.  Dell had taken care of the snake, looked like, but not in time to save his buildings. A shame, but he’d get them up and running again--

As the thought crossed his mind, another sound rang out across the field.  Heavy’s minigun spinning up, as the other team’s tank stomped his way around the corner, medigun fumes surrounding him.  They weren’t ubered, but judging by the sparks through their connection, they were close to it.  If the sentry was still up, the team might be able to stop them together, but with the machines out of commission--

“Dell!” Mick stood up and pushed the boards away from the window so he could lean out.  “Incoming!”

The Engineer looked up at him, but it was too slow, too late--the minigun was pointed towards the Texan, and Mick’s legs seemed to move without his consent, launching him out the window and down towards Dell.  He landed on top of the Engineer, pushing him to the ground and out of the way of the bullet spray, but he also almost definitely broke both of his own legs, and now he was laying weirdly on top of Engie for some reason? He pushed his torso up with a hand on either side of Dell’s head, and they locked eyes--Dell, confused as to why Sniper had just jettisoned out of the window to push him down, and Sniper... similarly confused, if he was honest.  But also glad to see he’d successfully saved Dell from the uniquely painful death that is being torn apart by a minigun that’s been super-charged by a mad doctor.

Then, a few seconds later, he experienced just that.

  
  


The time between death and respawn was, in reality, only about ten to fifteen seconds.  It felt like a few hours of rough, uncomfortable sleep, though, and when Mick came back, he felt groggy and sore.  Especially in his knees, where he had caught the most impact.

Before he could really dwell on what he had done, though, he bent double and coughed harder than he ever had before.

While he was indisposed, he heard the ominous whirring of a few other people respawning.  One, two... three.  God, he couldn’t breathe.  His chest was on fire, and his throat absolutely ripped raw when he was done, hand full of petals... five, this time.  And now that he’d been catching his coughs, he could see the liquid he’d felt earlier had been blood.

When he stood, Medic was standing across from him, staring with his arms crossed and a frown across his face.

“You are not alright,” he deadpanned.

“‘M fine,” Sniper insisted, which would have sounded more convincing if his voice didn’t come out as a sad croak.

“You launched yourself out a window, died on Engineer, and then respawned hacking up a lung.  That doesn’t sound fine to me.”

“...You saw that?” Mick scratched the back of his neck, unsure what to say.  His other hand was wrapped in a tight fist around the flower petals.

“Indeed I did.  The other team’s Heavy took out you and I as well as Scout, but between the Spy lurking behind him and our Heavy taking out his Medic, I think they have it handled.”  He took a step forward, and Sniper tried to take a step back, but hit the wall.  “Herr Sniper.  Tell me what is wrong with you.”

“I wish I could, Doc,” Mick sighed.  “Honestly, I got no clue.”  His eyes flicked to the door and back.  “Can we...?”

“Hm. Yes, I suppose we should. But Sniper.” He levelled the marksman with a stern glare, one that made his blood run cold.  “To my medbay, after the match.  No negotiation.”

Sniper nodded weakly, and Medic turned on his heel to run back out into the fray.

He uncurled his palm, letting the crushed and bloody yellow petals fall to the floor, before following behind.

  
  


To Mick’s credit, he tried his best to dodge the Medic after they finished for the day.  He went in a side door to the base, going around the most populated areas and sneaking back to his van unscathed.  Unfortunately, the Medic knew Mick’s game, and once the Sniper didn’t show up after the match he went to cut him off at the pass in front of his camper.

Head hanging, he walked to the medbay, with Medic glaring holes between his shoulder blades behind him.  It wasn’t that he didn’t like the Medic, or didn’t trust him, it was just... his drafty warehouse room turned hospital wing unnerved Mick.  Doctors offices in general unnerved Mick, even when they weren’t so... creepy.

He pushed the doors open nonetheless, shuffling over to the little examination cot they all had to sit on for their yearly evaluations.  Medic came to a stop in front of him and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Sniper.”  Mick looked up at him, though his face was still downturned.  “You have been experiencing some... symptoms, yes?”

The Sniper shrugged, crossing his arms tightly over his chest.  “I guess so, yea.  Coughin’.” Medic stared at the sharpshooter over his glasses, waiting, and Sniper sighed. “It’s been happenin’ for... like, a month, maybe?  Never happens when I’m alone in my camper.  Usually don’t happen during work, either, but...”

“Hm.”  Medic crossed the room to retrieve a clipboard and paper from his desk, scribbling something on it as he returned to Sniper’s side.  “Any other symptoms?”

“Well...”  Mick’s hand unconsciously went to rub his sternum. “My chest hurts, sometimes.”

“When you are alone?”

“No, not really.  Just when I’m with the guys.”  He shrugged.  “Sometimes worse than others.”

“And now?”

Mick shook his head. “A little, but barely.”

Medic hummed, tapping the pen on his lips. A few moments passed in silence.

“Is that all?”

Sniper shrugged again. Medic stared him down for a few moments, but Mick wasn’t really keen on admitting that he was seeing  _ flower petals _ when he coughed.

“Well, coughing and chest pain are common symptoms of a lot of things.  If you are experiencing anything you aren’t telling me, it would help to diagnose you quicker.”  The pen moved to tap on the clipboard as Medic spoke.  “Coughing, chest pain, impulsive behavior--”

“Wait, I don’t think I said anything about that last one, Doc.”

Mick got another look for his comment, and he shrank a little.  “Sniper, you jumped out of a window today.  We all saw it.  Don’t play dumb with me.”

_ Well _ .

“Uh.  Well, there is... one more thing, I guess.”

“What is it?”

Mick rubbed the back of his head, pulling a face.  Medic was already suspecting there was something more, and with the way things were going, the Doctor would probably find out eventually anyway.  “Eh. I don’t think this kind of thing can even happen, so I guess I’m just... seein’ things?  It’s an awful realistic, uh...  _ hallucination _ , though, since I can feel it, too, but...”

“When does this happen?  What do you see?”

“Well, I could swear I was coughin’ up blood.  Blood and, uh.”  He stared down at the toes of his boots, one of his feet bouncing a bit with nerves.  “Flower petals.  Yellow ones.”

“...Flower petals.”

He sighed.  “Look, Doc, I know it’s crazy--”

“No, no!” Medic shook his head, hands gesticulating wildly.  “This is important to figuring out what’s wrong with you.  Please, bear with me.”  The Doctor scribbled on his pad a bit more, chewing his lower lip.  “Herr Sniper, have you ever had...  Eh...   _ feelings  _ for another man before?”

Sniper’s expression turned hard.  “I dunno what you’re gettin’ at, Doc, but if you’ve got a problem--”

“Ach, no, Mick, please.”  The use of his real name startled Sniper a bit, but the Medic’s flippant response did take away a bit of the hostility in his expression.  “I’m just gauging what your reaction to this next bit might be.”

Sniper’s brows furrowed as the doctor scurried across the lab to a bookshelf.  “What do you mean by that, exactly?”

Medic didn’t answer as he browsed the titles, a finger running across the spines of his books.  Eventually he found the one he was looking for, and pulled it off the shelf.  He flipped through a few pages to make sure it was what he needed before returning to Sniper’s side.

“Ah, yes!  The condition you’re suffering from is very rare.  So much so that honestly I wasn’t sure it actually existed!  But, thankfully, unique enough to diagnose quite easily.”  The Medic had a wide smile on his face as he flipped through the book. 

“Yeah.   _ Thankfully _ .”  Mick’s fingers itched for a cigarette.  “What about curin’ it?”

“One step at a time, Sniper,” Medic scolded, a finger running down the page he was on.  “You said it gets worse when you are with the team, yes?”  Mick nodded.  “Anyone in particular?”

That question gave him pause.  Well... he didn’t get it when he was alone with a lot of the guys.  He’d had lunch with Scout the other day, and spent a few hours during a match last week shooting the shit with Spy.  But one specific person who caused it?  “I dunno, Doc... Maybe?”

“Hm.  Here’s another question, instead: Do you have feelings for one of the men on our team?”  Medic looked up, still smiling.

“Wh--I mean, I love all the guys on our team, yeah, but not like--”

“No, no, romantic feelings.  Is it Spy?  He  _ is  _ quite charismatic...”

“No! What? I--No!!”

Medic sighed, shuffling over to lean on the bed next to Sniper and pointing at his book.  “The symptoms you’re describing fit an exotic disease discovered in Japan.  It’s called  _ hanahaki  _ disease, literally  _ throw up flowers _ disease. It’s.. more of a parasite if we’re being honest here, characterized by flowers that grow in the lungs, that are then coughed up by the host.  Sometimes accompanied with blood or chest pain.”

“Alright, yeah, so why--”

“It’s  _ caused _ ,” Medic cut off, giving Sniper a look for interrupting, “by unrequited love for another.  Or, rather, it’s fed by it, though how or why a parasitic plant takes nutrition from a human emotion still a mystery. Some sort of hormonal response that stimulates it, I imagine...”

Sniper was quiet at that.

“The symptoms are often worsened in proximity to the object of one’s affections.  It’s cured by, well, not being around the person any more, or by having your affection become requited.”  Medic passed the book over into Sniper’s limp paws, pushing his glasses up his nose.  The page was open to what looked like a hand-drawn picture of a pair of lungs, vines twisting around and through them.  Flowers bloomed along the vines, and up the tubes connecting the lungs.  The drawing was labelled in Japanese, but the book itself was in English.

“.... _ Great.”  _ Sniper grimaced, idly rubbing his chest with a sense of unease.

“My personal medical opinion would be to perhaps consider confessing your feelings, depending on who we’re talking about, here.  Many of the men on our team are more accepting than they seem.  Barring that, I suppose there are other things we could try.”  Mick stayed quiet, so Medic kept talking, excitement leaking into his voice.  “Perhaps some sort of inhaler that would deliver particles of weedkiller to your lungs, or some other substance to kill the flowers?  Or I could cut you open, and--Er.  Mick?”

The Sniper had stood up while the Medic was talking, looking dazed.  He squeezed his eyes shut, moving to pinch the bridge of his nose, still-open book balanced in his other hand.  “That’s.  That’s impossible, Doc.”  He was lying to himself, and he knew it, but maybe if he said it enough, it would become true.  “I don’t...”

Medic’s expression softened, and his hand moved to rest on Sniper’s shoulder.  “Perhaps return to your quarters for the night and reflect on your own feelings.  I’ll work on possible cures, or ways to suppress your symptoms.  Come see me again when you are ready, alright?”

“Yeah.”  Sniper looked at the book in his hand, then up at the Medic again.

“Hold on to that.  Return it to me when you come back.”

Mick nodded numbly, closing the book and running his free hand over its cover.  “Yeah, alright.”

He probably should have thanked the Doctor, but instead he just turned and walked back to his camper.

  
  


“Hey, Stretch.” Sniper looked up from the half-whittled wooden bear in his hands to see Engineer approaching, his face nervous but hopeful. Sniper pushed his hat up with a thumb to see him better, and Dell smiled at him. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Sniper shrugged.  “Sure thing.  Here, or...?”

Engie looked around.  The rec room was empty, save for them, which was sort of rare.  “Here is fine.”  He stepped forward, closer to Sniper, and the sharpshooter put his craft down and leaned forward.  

Engineer licked his lips, which drew Sniper’s eye.  They looked soft, though perhaps like he’d been chewing on them.  Sniper reached a hand forward to take one of Engineer’s, which seemed to surprise the shorter man, but it didn’t startle him.  Engineer took another step forward, and they were in each other’s space, then.

“Dell...?”

Hands went to the sides of Sniper’s face, big and warm and rough around the edges, and then they were kissing, Mick’s dry lips pressed against Dell’s, which were warm and wet but not too wet, just enough.  Sniper’s eyes fluttered shut.  He licked into Dell’s mouth, tasting and retreating for Dell to do the same, and his hands moved to Dell’s hips, which were soft but firm and closer than they had ever been before.  Mick’s chest felt tight, like his heart was so full it might burst.

He woke up covered in sweat, alone in his cold, empty camper.  Rolling over onto his side, he spit out a mouthful of yellow petals, a new coughing fit adding three more to the pile.  His chest hurt, both physically, from the parasite growing larger in his lungs every day, but now also from... 

It was probably loneliness.  He was lonely, and the Doc had put ideas in his head, about the guys.  Sure, he had dated men before, but never a coworker, and never someone who was--

Mick pushed the petals off the mattress with a huff, standing up and walking across the camper to his tiny kitchen.  He got a few painkillers, swallowing them dry.  It had to be a misdiagnosis.  He’d bear with it for a bit longer, then go back and tell the doctor to try again if it didn’t go away.  Maybe let him do some of those weird treatments he seemed so excited about.

Anything the Doc had in store couldn’t be worse than trying to explain... 

Well.  There was nothing to explain, anyway.  Because he didn’t have feelings for his friend.  The longing in his chest was probably from the parasite.

...The parasite he didn’t have, because he didn’t have feelings for his friend.

Sniper went back to bed confused and frustrated, burying his head in his pillow so he didn’t have to think about Dell Conagher or his rough-soft hands or his warm-damp lips.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I've been having a hard time writing lately, so this one is shorter, but it's something.
> 
> I'm also not sure how to end it, so if you have an opinion, vote [here!](https://goo.gl/forms/PxqbNKsXDs0CUBMd2) I'm going to write both, though, and whichever option loses I'm gonna post on my tumblr.

Mick’s first plan was isolation, which worked pretty well for a while.  He showed up as late as possible before matches, and left right after them, keeping clear of Dell on the field as much as possible.  He ate meals in his camper, which admittedly limited him to microwaved ramen and some jerky he made on the last furlough weekend. He decided to go out hunting the next time he had a few days free, since he would probably have to live like this for the rest of his life.

He still coughed up petals on occasion, even without being in physical proximity of his... “ _ crush _ .”  Sometimes his mind wandered to the Engineer, and that alone seemed to be enough to set it off.  He’d gotten into the habit of piling up the petals and dumping them outside his camper door daily, but a few somehow still managed to stay scattered across his floor no matter what he did.  But he wasn’t doing stupid shit, and there wasn’t blood in it any more, so maybe he could starve it out. 

Well, that was the idea, anyway, for about a week and a half.  But his second Saturday of isolation brought a knock on his camper door.

“Uh--Just a minute,” he called, voice rough from disuse.  Whoever it was had caught him in the middle of making breakfast-ramen in his underwear, so he pulled the pot off the stove and pulled some pants on before grabbing his coffee to open the door.

On the other side of it, Dell stood with his hardhat in his hands in front of his chest, yellow flower petals piled up around his feet. 

Mick flushed.  There was an urge to slam the door in the Engineer’s face, but he resisted it.  He probably should have grabbed a shirt, though.

“Hey, Stretch,” Dell greeted, smiling that warm, sunny smile that made Mick’s lungs constrict and evaporated any doubts that the Doctor had hit the nail on the head.  

“Uh.”  He swallowed a cough.  “Hey, Engie. You, uh, need something?”

“Well, not particularly.  I just noticed you haven’t been around for a while, and you missed the Friday night cookout two weeks in a row...”  Dell shrugged. “I got a lil’ worried, is all. We didn’t do nothin’ to upset ya, did we?”

Mick hadn’t expected anyone to notice his absence, much less worry after him.  He couldn’t stop it this time, and stepped back to cough into a fist. Dell looked concerned, but Mick didn’t acknowledge it.  “No, no, I just, uh... Haven’t been feelin’ well. Don’t wanna get nobody sick.”

“That’s an awful long cold, there.  You talked to Doc about it yet?”

“Yeah.  He said, it’s, uh.”  Mick’s gaze bounced around, looking everywhere but at Dell’s soft blue eyes.  “A cold. You know. Just gotta wait it out.”

Dell’s uncovered hand moved up to scratch the back of his head, and Mick’s eyes habitually followed it.  One thick, callused hand. One metal, sheathed in rubber. Both... soft, in a way, and gentle. His lungs throbbed again.

“Well, do you want company?  I don’t mind a little cold. Gives me an excuse to stay in the workshop,” he added with a crooked little smile.  “It’s not bad enough to keep you out of battle, after all.

“I don’t--I mean, you don’t have to do that,” Mick stuttered, his own hands fumbling in front of himself.  “Unless, uh, you really want to? But don’t--”

Dell shook his head, cutting Mick’s rambling off with a smile.  “Let me go get my cooler, we can make a campfire and roast some weenies.  Don’t think I haven’t noticed you skippin’ dinner and breakfast too, boy,” he added with an accusatory finger.  Mick just nodded.

  
  


Mick had put on a shirt but foregone his hat and glasses for the outing.  He set up two lawn chairs and started stacking kindling into a teepee formation while he waited for Dell to come back.

This was stupid.  He’d stopped hanging out with the guys specifically to avoid Dell, and now here he was, starting a campfire to make dinner with the guy.  And how was he going to hide the fact that he was coughing up flowers if they were sitting next to each other for who-knows-how-long?

As an afterthought, Mick scooped up a large portion of his petal pile and incorporated it into his firewood structure.  Might as well get some use out of the things.

Dell returned with his wheeled cooler and two long weenie-roasting sticks just as Mick got a satisfying fire lit.  He looked up, and Dell gave him a smile. It was just about impossible not to smile back at him.

Admittedly the weenies were good, and a refreshing change from his recent diet of non-perishables.  The Engineer had also brought beers, which were cold and refreshing and soothed the scratchy pain that had taken up residence in his throat.

“You start gardening?” Dell asked after a few minutes of sipping beers, post-weenie roast.  He reached down and picked up a yellow petal between two fingers.

“I guess you could say that,” Mick mumbled.

“Carnations, right?”  He looked up at the Sniper, who just sort of blinked owlishly at him.  “My wife used to grow ‘em in her garden. Always remind me of back home in Texas.”

“Right,” Sniper agreed, taking a very, very large gulp of his beer, pushing down some petals.  He knew about Engineer’s wife, of course--Dell didn’t talk much about her, but he had a wedding ring, and sometimes mentioned her in passing like he just had.  

It still sent a pang of pain through his chest.

“Um.”  Dell let the petal flutter to the ground, looking at Mick with concern.  “You okay, there, Stretch? You look like you’re gonna upchuck.”

“I’m--”   _ Fine  _ is the word he intended to follow that, but instead what came out was a deep-chested hacking, muffled due to the fact that the Sniper wouldn’t open his mouth.  Concern crossed Dell’s features, but Mick didn’t see it, doubled over with his arms wrapped around his stomach as he coughed hard. He did feel the Engineer’s hand rest on his back, rubbing a few warm circles.  When the coughing stopped, Mick had a mouthful of petals, which he forced down his throat in a dry swallow, lest Dell figure out what was going on.

“...I’m fine,” Mick repeated weakly, peeking up at his friend sheepishly.  Dell frowned at him.

“You should get some rest,” the Engineer said.  He sounded firm about it. Mick nodded as Dell stood, patted his back, and grabbed the cooler.  “You sure Doc didn’t have any sort of meds that can help you out?” Mick shook his head, and Dell hummed.  “Well, come find me if you’re feelin’ lonely. I’ll bring you some dinner if you don’t come in tomorrow.”

He waited as he heard Dell’s boots retreat back towards the base.  Once the sound was gone, Mick sighed, blood dribbling down his lips and into the dirt.

  
  


The gears in Dell’s head were turning as he left.  There was something wrong with Sniper, something very wrong with him--even aside from the coughing, but he wasn’t acting right.  The coughing was concerning enough on its own, though. Dell was no medical doctor, but he didn’t know of any sort of cold that made you cough that bad.  He also had the sneaking suspicion his friend was coughing up blood, since he’d seen some on his carnation petals, and a little bit on the collar of his shirt.

All of this noted, the Engineer stopped by the rec room to drop off his cooler (knowing full well that the remaining beers inside would be gone when he came back for it, but unwilling to truck it all the way back to his workshop) and made his way towards the infirmary.  The light was on, but there were no sounds coming from inside, so he knocked on the door before pushing his way inside. “Doc?”

The Medic was at his desk, glasses propped on his head while he leaned close to some sort of book.  He glanced up at the call, squinted, then seemed to remember his glasses and pushed them back down to his nose.  “Ah! Engineer. Come in, come in. How can I help you?”

“Oh, sorry, Doc, didn’t mean to interrupt--”

“No, no, please, this is nothing.”  He flipped the book shut and stood, waving his hand.  “Are you hurt?”

“Naw, nothin’ so urgent as that.”  He walked the rest of the way into the infirmary, once again removing his hardhat to fiddle with it in his hands.  “I jus’ had a few questions I wanted to ask.”

“Well, I’m here to answer them,” the Medic answered with a shrug, sitting back down.  He motioned to a chair across from his desk, pushing some papers around on his desk while Dell moved to sit.  “What is bothering you, my friend?”

“It’s not  _ me _ , persay.  I’m just a lil’ worried ‘bout Sniper, is all.”  Medic raised his eyebrows, but the Engineer continued.  “He said it was just a cold, but after hangin’ around him for a while, I dunno.  Not that I don’t trust your judgement, Doc, but I dunno if he’s tellin’ us everythin’...  You know how he is.”

“Indeed.”  Medic tapped a pen on the desk, looking at Dell with an intensity that the smaller man didn’t really understand or question.  That’s just how Doc was, most of the time. “What sort of symptoms was he showing that are causing you concern?”

“Well, he was coughin’ an awful lot...”  Saying it out loud, it really didn’t sound that bad.  “I’m pretty sure there was some blood in those coughs, too.  He seemed to have a whole mouthful, but he swallowed it so I wouldn’t see.”

“Would you say he was coughing more than he was before? A few weeks ago?”  Dell nodded. “And you were ‘hangin around’ with him?” Dell nodded again. “Alone, just the two of you?”

“Er--Yeah.”  The Engineer shrugged.  “I brought him some food an’ beers, then I asked him ‘bout his garden, and he started hackin’ up a lung.  Doubled over and everything.”

Medic raised an eyebrow.  “...His garden?”

“Yeah.  The whole area around his camper’s covered in yella carnation petals.  Dunno how they got all over the place like that, though. Maybe an animal got into ‘em.”  Dell noticed then that the Doctor was writing notes, so maybe his concern wasn’t completely unwarranted.  “So, what do you think, Doc? Does he have cancer or somethin’?”

“Oh, no, no.  Not cancer. At least, he is as likely to have cancer as all the rest of us are!”  The Medic laughed at that, as if it was some private joke.

“...Okay.  What, then?”

“Oh, no, I cannot tell you that.  Confidentiality and all that, yes?  But your concern has been noted! Thank you, Engineer, and goodbye.”  Pushing a foot off his desk, the Medic spun his chair to face away from Dell.

“But--”

“Goodbye, Engineer!”

Dell huffed, but stood and left as he was told.

  
  


Sniper ran his hands from the sides of Engineer’s face down past his shoulders to the clasps of his overalls, humming into the other’s mouth as he fiddled with them.  Dell chuckled a bit as he struggled with the clasps, shooing Mick’s hands away from them to deftly unhook them himself. Mick made a face, a little embarrassed that he couldn’t get it himself, like an overexcited teenager, but Dell caught his eyes and gave him a smile full of affection before leaning forward to kiss him so, so sweetly...

Mick crashed back into consciousness with a gasp, unable to even get a cough out.  He was making noise, sure, but there were no actual coughs, no petals to spit out and brush away.  It was dark, but that’s because it was night time, and he’d been trying to sleep, so no worries there.  In a few seconds he was aware that he was struggling for air, and sat up in a panic, attempting to dislodge whatever was stuck in his airway. 

_ This is it _ , he thought.   _ All these years of one of the most dangerous jobs on earth, and Michael Mundy falls prey to a stupid crush on a married man _ . 

His last thought before fading out was of the Engineer in his dreams, smiling at him full of affection.  Full of love.

  
  


He woke up about fifteen minutes later in the respawn room, lit only from the emergency light that always stayed on over the door.  He wasn’t coughing any more, but spit out a thick, ugly ball of petals matted together with blood. It made a sickening slap as it fell on the floor.

A wholly unpleasant experience, for sure, but at least he’d respawned.  He wasn’t really sure how respawn worked--never listened to Medic or Engineer talk about it, or never understood--so he didn’t know if it was just battle injuries, or if it got turned off at night, or what.  He imagined more reckless members of his team had tested it’s parameters before, but he’d never bothered.

Good to know, at least.

He stared down at the petal-blood clot on the floor, next to his bare foot.  At least he’d worn pants to bed that night. His chest felt pretty good, too, so maybe he’d just hacked up the rest of his flowers?

Either way, he felt better than he had in weeks.  Leaving the glob to whatever fate the rest of their battlefield gore met, Mick trotted back to his camper to get a good night’s sleep.

  
  


The pain took about three days to come back.  It was a nice three days, but the gradual return of his chest pain and coughing was disappointing, to say the least.  By the fourth it was just as bad before, and by the fifth it was worse.

The seventh day was a weekend, and he was planning on heading into town.  He was midway through his preparations (which mostly consisted of putting anything loose in his camper into a cabinet so it didn’t knock around) when a thick cough tore through his chest.  Nothing new, except for when it didn’t stop. He squeezed his eyes closed.  _ It’s happening again _ .  Choking to death was one of the worst ways to die, he decided.  His legs gave out and he fell to the ground, palms in the dirt--thankfully he was outside, so he wouldn’t have to clean up the blood he saw dotting the ground between his hands.

When he respawned, he was tired, and the pain was just an echo of what it was, but it still ached.  He returned to his camper and rifled through his things, making a mess of the place in the process but eventually finding what he was looking for--Medic’s book.  He flipped to the marked page and sat heavily on his bed, running his fingers over the pages.  _ Fed by unrequited love for another _ .  He felt a pang in his chest, from emotion rather than his lungs.  The book went on to explain some of the theorized biology of the parasite, which the Sniper admittedly skimmed, until he came to the concluding paragraph.

_ In most cases proves to be fatal.   _ Well, not for him, but...

Mick knew it would be back even sooner this time, and he couldn't exactly keep working like this, especially if it came sooner every time.  With a sigh, he decided it was time to return Medic’s book.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments inspire me to keep writing, no matter how short or long they may be!
> 
> Feel free to message me on tumblr at onwednesdayswewritefics or handsomejackrussell.
> 
> u3u~


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